Abstract
BackgroundMedical care workers experienced unprecedented levels of workload and pressure since the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Little is known about its exact impact on medical care workers and related factors in China. This study aims to identify the psychological impact of COVID-19 on medical care workers in China.MethodsFrom February 23 to March 5, 2020, a cross-sectional survey was conducted among 863 medical care workers from seven provinces in China using standard questionnaires measuring adverse psychological outcomes including Impact of Event Scale-6 (IES-6), Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale(DASS)and related psychosocial factors like perceived threat, social support and coping strategies. Exploratory Factor analysis was performed to identify the dimensions of perceived threat by study participants. Multivariate regression was used to examine the determinants of adverse psychological outcomes.ResultsPosttraumatic stress (PTS) were prevalent in this sample of health care professionals, and 40.2% indicated positive screens for significant posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. The proportion of having mild to extremely severe symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress were 13.6, 13.9 and 8.6%, respectively. Perceived threat and passive coping strategies were positively correlated to PTS and DASS scores, while perceived social support and active coping strategies were negatively correlated to DASS scores. Nurses were more likely to be anxious than others among medical care workers during the COVID-19 epidemic.ConclusionsAdverse psychological symptoms were prevalent among medical care workers in China during the COVID-19 epidemic. Screening for adverse psychological outcomes and developing corresponding preventive measures would be beneficial in decreasing negative psychological outcomes.
Highlights
Medical care workers experienced unprecedented levels of workload and pressure since the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
The present study aimed to investigate the presence of adverse psychological outcome, anxiety, depression and post traumatic stress (PTS), experienced by medical care workers during the COVID-19 outbreak and assess the associated factors, to better understand the psychological suffering of medical care workers and provide clues of developing intervention to alleviate the psychological stress of this population
The results of our study revealed a high prevalence of PTS among Chinese medical care workers during the outbreak of COVID-19 virus
Summary
Medical care workers experienced unprecedented levels of workload and pressure since the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This study aims to identify the psychological impact of COVID-19 on medical care workers in China. There have been 3 090 445 cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and 217 769 death reported worldwide as of April 30, 2020 [1]. In China alone, there were reports of more than 84 373 COVID-19 cases with 4643 deaths [1]. There is a wide consensus that the outbreak of an infectious disease is often linked with adverse psychological outcomes. Severe emotional stress had been reported during or after the infectious diseases outbreak among medical care workers in previous studies, including the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic [3], 2014 Ebola virus disease and 2015 Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak [4, 5]
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